I was so excited for the release of Respect the Image: Reflecting Human Worth in How We Listen and Talk.. I’ve known Tim Shorey for many years, and I truly can’t think of a better person to write on this topic. We all need help with communication, and Respect the Image is filled to the brim with wisdom about how to communicate with truth and grace, honoring God’s image in all people.
Here are 10 favorite quotes:
You cannot be right with God and be habitually trashing those who are made in his image. (35)
Disagreeing in an open and constructive way, especially over important matters, requires supernatural courage and humility. (57)
All our important human connections are threatened by busyness with nonessentials, and the relationships that are closest and dearest are the most vulnerable. Usually the relationships that suffer the most are the ones that we presume on the most. (69)
God’s Word doesn’t need my validation in order to be true. It is true because he is true. (84)
Respecting the image means that we cannot presume to understand, or rush to judge, or choose to stereotype anyone who is made in that image. Superficial hearing and prejudicial assumptions profane the dignity—the profound sanctity—of human life. If we prejudge or dismiss lightly the words of another, we commit relational violence against someone who bears vestiges of the Holy. Revering God means that we must strive to understand those who bear his image. (98)
There are times when words that revive, make wise, and enlighten may hurt—at least in the moment. But if wounding words need to be spoken, let’s make sure that they are the wounds of a friend. (117)
Life is too hard and sins are too many for us to take our eyes off God or leave our hearts disconnected from the gospel of his saving and forgiving grace. (123)
The Bible teaches the reality of both human dignity (which is to be honored) and human depravity (which is to be mourned), and it’s hard to express these truths together in the proper proportion. Too many in the world focus exclusively on the first. Too many in the church focus too much on the second. (153)
We should enter every conversation—and especially every dispute—with a confidence that there will be something for us to learn, something for us to confess, something that we did not know as we ought to have known it or need to know it. That I am not all-knowing should be more than a statement of the obvious; it should be a conscious, functioning conviction that humbles me all the time. (166)
The good news of our unchangeable standing in the grace of God frees us from both the pride of assuming that we are always right and from the paralysis of thinking that we never are. It enables us to be open to other views and to openly share our own. It secures us in Christ so that we can assume that we have both something to learn and something to say. (176)